Robotic Arms

Double Amputee Becomes First to Control Two Robotic Arms with Only His Mind

Baugh, as Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory reports, is the first “bilateral shoulder-level amputee” to wear and control two modular prosthetic limbs at the same time. The technology has been in development for more than a decade. It was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and was tested on Baugh as part of an experimental program run at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Though his progress is groundbreaking, accomplishing this medical first was no easy feat. Baugh first had to undergo an intense surgery — performed by the institute’s medical director, Albert Chi — that rearranged (in medical terms, “reinnervated”) the nerves in his chest.

“I remember when I first came out from under it, the pain — I don’t even remember the original being that much excruciating pain,” Baugh said in a video released by the university. 

Sony Xperia Z3 scores a record battery life

All bow to the new endurance king: Sony Xperia Z3 scores a record battery life for its category

We are not going to mince words here - Sony is the current king of battery life when it comes to brand-name smartphones. We did our grueling battery benchmark on the Xperia Z3 over the weekend, and it broke all records in its respective category, just as we suspected it would do, given Sony's consistent performance in that department this year.

The phone lasted for nearly nine and a half hours of screen-on time when we ran our tasking battery benchmark, putting it comfortably ahead of any other flagship big-screen phone or phablet we've tested at the moment. 

As mentioned, this is more than any other flagship we've measured so far - phone or phablet - and even more than the Ascend Mate7, which comes equipped with a whopping 4100 mAh juicer, while the Z3 has an "only" 3100 mAh piece in a 7.3mm thin waterproof body. 

The Z3 battery endurance is also better than the one of the Z2, which already has a great battery life, so kudos to Sony here - it managed to squeeze much more life out of a tad smaller battery, compared to the Z2, and make a truly "two-day battery". The charging time, on the other hand, is much longer than the average, at close to four hours with the paltry stock 850 mA charger. 

If you think that what Sony did is by accident, then a simple look at our top ten endurance champs will tell you that this is not the case. Sony phones are currently occupying six of the top ten slots in our battery benchmark ranking, and these range from low-ends, like the Xperia C, through midrangers like the slim T3, all the way to the Xperia Z3 flagship. The "culprit" must be Sony's displays, which might not be the best out there when it comes to color representation and viewing angles, but are apparently using an extremely frugal technology, and screens are the pesky components with the highest battery consumption in our smartphones, so kudos to Sony here.

Battery life

We measure battery life by running a custom web-script, designed to replicate the power consumption of typical real-life usage. All devices that go through the test have their displays set at 200-nit brightness.

name	hours Higher is better

  

Sony Xperia Z3	9h 29 min (Excellent)
Huawei Ascend Mate7	9h 3 min (Excellent)
Sony Xperia Z2	8h 10 min (Excellent)
Samsung Galaxy S5	7h 38 min (Good)
HTC One (M8)	7h 12 min (Good)
Apple iPhone 6 Plus	6h 32 min (Average)
LG G3	6h 14 min (Average)
Samsung Galaxy Note 3	6h 8 min (Average)
Motorola Moto X (2014)	5h 45 min (Average)
Apple iPhone 6	5h 22 min (Poor)
Apple iPhone 5s	5h 2 min (Poor)
Google Nexus 5	4h 50 min (Poor)

The Pirate Bay Back End

The Pirate Bay Back End “Hydra” to go Live on January 1, 2015

of providing a torrent search following the raid of The Pirate Bay on December 9th. While users were happy to see this at the time, it still didn't make up for the fact that The Pirate Bay was shut down and there had been no word on when or if it would return.

On the site the isoHunt team states, "As you probably know the beloved Pirate Bay website is gone for now. It’ll be missed. It’ll be remembered as the pilgrim of freedom and possibilities on the web. It’s a symbol of liberty for a generation of internet users.

In its honor we are making the oldpiratebay.org search. We, the isohunt.to team, copied the database of Pirate Bay in order to save it for generations of users. Nothing will be forgotten. Keep on believing, keep on sharing."

They not only created a search, but have been encouraging anyone who wants to, to create their own copy of The Pirate Bay. Why would so many people want to do that? Because it’s all part of the plan for the return of The Pirate Bay, working in collaboration with isoHunt. Our sources tell us that "hydra" is a code name for the back end of The Pirate Bay, and that “hydra” plans to go live on January 1, 2015.

In Greek mythology, hydra is a serpent with many heads, hence the image that appears on the .se site right now. The structured plan by The Pirate Bay team is to have so many fronts (fake copies) of the Pirate Bay, that it would be nearly impossible for the authorities to get to the real Pirate Bay which will be hidden behind the servers and will be where the magnets, databases and users actually are. User access will be though the copies of TPB, to get to the real Pirate Bay.

Our sources provided us with a copy of the structured layout for the return of TPB, and also tell us that The Pirate Bay will not be returning on the “thepiratebay.se” domain, but plans to return on a new domain, possibly using .xyz. Tiamo, who owns thepiratebay.se domain, is currently in jail.

This is good news for the thousands of Pirate Bay users who have been wondering when their favorite torrent site would be back.

Stay tuned for more news as it becomes available.

Sony Hack

The Case for N. Korea’s Role in Sony Hack

There are still many unanswered questions about the recent attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, such as how the attackers broke in, how long they were inside Sony’s network, whether they had inside help, and how the attackers managed to steal terabytes of data without notice. To date, a sizable number of readers remain unconvinced about the one conclusion that many security experts and the U.S. government now agree upon: That North Korea was to blame. This post examines some compelling evidence from past such attacks that has helped inform that conclusion.

An image from HP, captioned “North Korean students training for cyberwar.”

\

The last time the world saw an attack like the one that slammed SPE was on March 20, 2013, when computer networks running three major South Korean banks and two of the country’s largest television broadcasters were hit with crippling attacks that knocked them offline and left many South Koreans unable to withdraw money from ATMs. The attacks came as American and South Korean military forces were conducting joint exercises in the Korean Peninsula.

That attack relied in part on malware dubbed “Dark Seoul,” which was designed to overwrite the initial sections of an infected computer’s hard drive. The data wiping component used in the attack overwrote information on infected hard drives by repeating the words “hastati” or “principes,” depending on which version of the wiper malware was uploaded to the compromised host.


Both of those terms reference the military classes of ancient Rome: “hastati” were the younger, poorer soldiers typically on the front lines; the “principes” referred to more hardened, seasoned soldiers. According to a detailed white paper from McAfee, the attackers left a calling card a day after the attacks in the form of a web pop-up message claiming that the NewRomanic Cyber Army Team was responsible and had leaked private information from several banks and media companies and destroyed data on a large number of machines.

Nexus X to boost Google stock

All eyes have been on Apple recently as they finally unveiled their long awaited iPhone 6 and Apple Watch. But now that the Apple frenzy is winding down, it’s time to talk about the next big event in mobile tech – the upcoming release of a new Google Nexus phone.

Click to buy Google stock

Based on the latest (leaked) photos of the new phone (which will probably be called the Nexus X), it seems that the next generation of Google phones might be moving further into the spotlight and beginning to generate its own buzz. According to the latest rumors, the upcoming phone, which apparently will be manufactured by Motorola, will have a 5.2 inch display, a 2.0 GHz octa-core processor from MediaTek and a 13 mega pixel camera.

The $499.99 price tag clearly makes this one of Google’s more expensive phones and puts it that much closer, price-wise, to the coveted iPhone.

This impressive phone is sure to excite tech savvies and gadget “geeks”, but why should investors care about a Google phone, albeit a relatively impressive one? After all, the sales of the device itself are expected to make only a marginal difference in Google’s total revenue picture so why are investors excited?

Google wants Apple’s users

Although Google’s newest phone isn’t going to be released until sometime around Halloween, with specs that could possibly shadow those of the new iPhone 6, the Nexus X will certainly be no ghost. But what investors are coming to realize is that the Nexus X is a tool that will allow Google to tap into the lucrative market of 800 million iTunes users, the majority of whom use their iPhone or other Apple products exclusively.

As seen below, Apple users statistically have more available income at their disposal and spend more money on apps, music, games or whatever else is available on their mobile devices. And this is what Google is really after; Google wants to get a piece of the crème de la crème pie, by enticing the big spenders to move into their Android ecosystem and spend dollars at Google Play rather than iTunes. This is where the big bucks come in and that is what is getting investors excited.

Charting the Targets

As illustrated above, what Google investors really care about is how this new Nexus X will rival iPhone to lure more Apple iTunes users to Google Play.  At the moment,  it seems that investors are indeed optimistic. The targets range from the strongly bullish, who target $750 a share, a 27% upside, to the more conservative bulls who eye $672, a 14% upside. But what is more interesting is that the bears foresee a downside risk of 3% which is, all in all, a rather moderate prediction and a signal that investors expect little downside risk.

Will the Nexus X deliver? Will Google get its hands on those lucrative iTunes users? Only time will tell, but when it does, analysts, it seems, may have already carved out the upside targets.

Alipay adds Touch ID

Chinese mobile payments platform 'Alipay' adds Touch ID support

While iPhone owners in China may not yet have access to Apple Pay, it looks like they can still look forward to using Touch ID with their mobile payments. Alipay, a mobile payments platform run by Alibaba in China, was updated Tuesday with support for Touch ID verification.

The addition of Touch ID verification in Alipay Wallet replaces the app's previous password verification process, and should be available immediately to users.

In addition, a report by China Daily says that Alipay is working on bringing other biometric verification processes to the platform:

Alipay, which has more than 300 million users in China, said it is working on other biometric technologies, which can make it possible for people to confirm payments for a wide variety of goods and services by winking or simply by showing their faces in the near future.

The integration of Apple's fingerprint sensor in Alipay could be the first step towards the two companies working together. Just last month, Alibaba's Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai hinted that Alipay could provide the back-end services for Apple Pay in China.

terrifying reliance on GPS

Our terrifying reliance on GPS, and the need to develop a ground-based alternative

The Global Positioning System, or GPS, has — somewhat surprisingly — found itself at the heart of modern civilization. I don’t think anyone predicted how significant GPS would be today, just 14 years after it was made freely and globally available to civilians and commercial operations in 2000 — but hey, it happened, and there’s no going back. 

 There is no doubt that the ubiquity of GPS across all areas of civilian, commercial, and scientific endeavor has improved the quality of life for billions of people. From self-driving cars to clock synchronization, from geofencing to earthquake prediction to finding a safe walking or cycle route home, GPS really is one of the most vital services. It is a little bit scary, then, that GPS can very easily be jammed by terrorists or other nefarious actors.

GPS jammers

Because GPS ultimately relies on very weak radio signals being beamed to you from about 12,600 miles (20,200 km) above Earth, it’s very easy for GPS to fail or be otherwise disrupted. Being underground is one obvious example, but just walking around the streets of a high-rise city can be pretty tough for GPS.

You can buy a battery-powered GPS jammer online for less than $100

It’s also very easy to proactively disrupt GPS with a jamming device. Because the signal is so weak, and because the frequency used by GPS is very well known (1559 to 1610MHz), it’s very easy to build a device that blankets an area in RF noise, smothering the GPS signal. (In case you were wondering,

picking up a GPS signal is like trying to spot a 25-watt light bulb from around 10,000 miles away.)

There are cheap, pocket-sized GPS jammers that you can buy online that provide a jamming radius of a few meters — but of course, with a little technical knowhow, it would be fairly easy to build a larger device that blocks an entire street or city from using GPS. (Those pocket-sized jammers are regularly used by truck drivers and couriers, incidentally, so that they can evade the ever-watchful gaze of HQ.)

When GPS fails

Because so many different technologies and endeavors are backed by GPS, the consequences of GPS failing or being jammed are wildly varied. For someone on foot, a GPS outage might simply be an inconvenience that forces you to stumble around for a little longer in your search for the highest-rated indie coffee shop on TripAdvisor.

 For a self-driving car, or perhaps an ambulance driver trying to find someone’s house, the repercussions of GPS failure are a little more significant. For a seafaring vessels, especially the larger cargo ships, a loss of GPS can mean a complete loss of control — which is a problem if you’re approaching the dock at high speed, or if you end up being stranded in the middle of the ocean.
And, of course, you really don’t want to lose GPS if you happen to be barreling through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour — like if you’re an airplane, or a cruise missile perhaps.

So, of course, you need a GPS backup

The orbiting constellation of GPS satellites

The driving force behind the creation of the GPS — and the more recent Russian GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo, and China’s COMPASS — is that you can provide global coverage with a constellation of just two dozen satellites.

 GPS consists of 32 orbiting satellites, ensuring that (generally) you can see nine satellites at any given time — more than enough to get an accurate location fix (the minimum is four). Because of the distance between us and the satellites, though, the signals are very easy to jam (and as an aside, they’re not very good for calculating altitude, too).

A ground-based system would be much more flexible and accurate than GPS — but the trade-off is that you need to blanket the Earth in hundreds or thousands of transmitters, which are expensive to build, hard to maintain, and in some cases just plain inconvenient (how do you monitor the southern Indian or Pacific oceans, for example?)

Still, the difficulty of building a ground-based global positioning system is far outweighed by the catastrophe that would result from an unexpected attack or prolonged outage of GPS — which is why some nations are now taking a serious look at ground-based alternatives to GPS, just in case a worst-case scenario does actually occur.

Malware Like Stuxnet and Flame

This Artist’s Images Integrate Code From Malware Like Stuxnet and Flame

For years, sophisticated state-created malware like Stuxnet and Regin has fascinated and vexed the security research community and launched a new foreign policy debate. Now it’s infecting the art world, too.

In an exhibit at Manhattan’s Callicoon Fine Arts gallery running through the next month, artist James Hoff is showing a new series of images that visually integrate code from government-written malware samples like Stuxnet and Flame. As Hoff describes it, he’s used those spying and cyberwar tools to “glitch” the digital images. allowing the malware to add a certain uncontrollable static to his otherwise carefully crafted works of abstract color.

“It’s about letting the virus be the generative aspect of the process in the studio,” he says. “That variability is very interesting to me. It allows you to get out of your own way of making art and bring randomness into the mix.”

A pair of cufflinks Hoff created that contain a USB stick that stores a piece of music whose notes are based in part on Stuxnet’s code. 

Hoff creates his malware-glitched works, which have all already been sold, by dropping digital paintings into a hex editor that converts it to text. Then he intersperses randomly chosen chunks of code from malware files, and reconstitutes the data as an image file. The code corrupts the image in unexpected ways, adding chromatic streaks, blotches, and static. In two of the images, Hoff used code from the NSA-created software Stuxnet, built to destroy centrifuges at Iranian nuclear facilities. The other 14 images use code from Flame, which Hoff calls by its alternate name Skywiper, an older NSA-created spyware program.

The images, which Hoff calls his Skywiper series, are only his latest malware-inspired works. Last year he created a pair of cufflinks that hid USD memory sticks that stored a piece of music based in part on Stuxnet’s code. He also released a series of iPhone ringtones glitched with code from the year 2000 ILOVEYOU virus. 

 The code corrupts the image in unexpected ways, adding chromatic streaks, blotches, and static. In two of the images, Hoff used code from the NSA-created software Stuxnet, built to destroy centrifuges at Iranian nuclear facilities. The other 14 images use code from Flame, which Hoff calls by its alternate name Skywiper, an older NSA-created spyware program.

Here are a few samples:

Despite his new focus on state-crafted malware, Hoff insists his work isn’t political. But he does intend the use of state cyberwarfare tools to connect the art to the world at large. “I don’t think of viruses as good or bad. To me, they’re just agents,” he says. “I just want to pull that element into the work. It allows for that kind of reflection, both on a conceptual level and an aesthetics level. The actual code is embedded in the image you see.”

the visually impaired

New hopes for the visually impaired

This artificial vision system helps visually-impaired people recognize characters. A man uses the system to recognize the letter N. (Courtesy of Nidek)

TOKYO -- Today's digital world has raised risks of eye disease caused by heavy strains due to constant PC and smartphone use.

     Currently, about 300,000 people in Japan are estimated to have lost their eyesight. To help restore their vision, even partially, university researchers and businesses are using the newest technology available to treat vision-impaired patients, something once considered impossible.

     In January this year, a woman in her 60s living in Osaka Prefecture underwent eye surgery at the Osaka University Hospital. She had an artificial retina made from electrodes implanted to restore her sight. This procedure is the latest clinical research. The woman lost most of her vision to a rare disease called retinal pigmentary degeneration eight years ago.

 "I can now see white flowers in the garden and see a rough figure of my husband," she said. Advances in medical technology have helped her see again, even if only to a small degree.

Reactivating cells

Osaka University has been working on ways to tackle this disease. Under its method, a blind person wears a pair of glasses equipped with small charge coupled devices, which sends image data shot by the CCD to an image processing device around the neck. Then, the image data is converted and signals are transmitted to the intact retina cells via a 6 millimeter-square electrode chip implanted in the sclera, the outer part of the retina known commonly as the white of the eye.

     Normally, image data captured by the crystalline lenses in our eyes is first sent to the retina via nerves before being passed onto the brain. However, decoding of image data fails when many retina cells are lost. To solve this problem, Osaka University researchers have come up with ways to generate different image data signals and transmit them to the remaining retina cells. As a result, these cells are reactivated and send image data to the brain.

     The university hospital has already performed three such operations and plans to obtain official approval as a medical device in a few years. "This method allows patients to see figures and movements only vaguely at the moment. We hope to create artificial retina technology that can help them live independently in the future," said Takashi Fujikado, an ophthalmology professor of Osaka University who is in charge of the research project.

     To achieve greater clarity of vision, a research team led by Jun Ota, professor of photonic device science at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, has been trying to increase the accuracy of electrode chips. Simply increasing the number of electrodes makes chips bigger. This would require more wires to link chips and complicate implant surgery.

Working together
Thus, professor Ota and his fellow scientists are working to develop new, micro-size electrodes. Working with Nidek, an Aichi Prefecture-based developer and manufacturer of ophthalmic devices, they have created an ultrafine processing technology for making electrodes small enough to fit a greater number onto a single chip.

     This makes it possible to embed minuscule electrodes in a single electrode array. Currently, more than 1,000 electrodes can be embedded in a chip of several sq.-millimeters, 20 times more than Osaka University's method, according to the research team. The use of this new technology and the artificial retina being developed by Osaka University will make it possible to implant these tiny chips to electrically stimulate the retina.

     Ota and his research team will study whether these chips will corrode or deteriorate inside the body, aiming to put the technology to use as soon as possible. "Visual cells process more than 100 million pixels. We are not sure if we can replicate the colors [seen by impaired eyes] fully, but this may greatly improve the quality of life for visually impaired people so that they could read books or go out," said Ota. (Nikkei)

Intel announces 32-layer 3D NAND

Intel announces 32-layer 3D NAND chips, plans for larger-than-10TB SSDs

It’s been clear for several years that three-dimensional NAND die stacking, in which chip layers are oriented vertically as opposed to horizontal planar structures was the way forward for next-generation chip designs. Until now, Samsung has been the only company to take that plunge, but that’s going to change in 2015 with the launch of Intel’s own solution in 2015.

According to Intel, its 256-gigabit MLC NAND chips will consist of 32 layers, and will also be available in a 384-gigabit TLC configuration. Intel is claiming that its own 256Gb die sets efficiency records, but as Anandtech reports, this depends on how you count — Samsung has consciously chosen to use a 32-layer 86Gbit die to minimize its die foot print, as opposed to maximizing capacity. This gives Samsung’s V-NAND the smallest die size of any product currently on the market, with size being a very important factor in many markets.

Moving back up the nanometer ladder

Intel, like Samsung, is expected to announce that it uses a much larger process node for its 3D NAND. In Samsung’s case, it uses a 40nm process for 3D NAND, despite the fact that its working on 14nm planar technology for both logic and DRAM devices. Intel and Micron have already launched 16nm 2D NAND, but the fundamental characteristics of flash mean that device reliability decreases as process nodes shrink.

Read: SanDisk’s collosal 4TB SSD: Does this mean SSDs will soon provide more storage than hard drives?




Moving back up to 40nm NAND gave Samsung enough headroom to launch the fastest, most reliable SSD on the market today — the 850 Pro — and it’s expected to give Intel a similar kick. Intel isn’t willing to put a strict timetable on its plans for a 10TB SSD (and you can expect any such device to debut with an enterprise-class price tag), but Samsung has talked about stacking over a hundred layers of NAND per die — and if Intel hits equivalent densities, a 10TB SSD should be possible within five years.



As the chart shows, moving back up to the 32nm node would more than double reliability as compared to 16nm levels. It also allows for less error correction, at least in theory, and might even enable increased drive densities. TLC drives have struggled to improve their Program/Erase (P/E) cycles, but a 40nm TLC drive might be able to offer the same reliability as an MLC drive at 16nm. The bottom line is, moving back to old nodes offers better options if density can still be scaled.

Ideally, researchers would find ways to adopt older process node technology for more than just NAND flash. The difficulty of building ever-smaller structures has gotten to the point that we’re bumping up against the physical limits of reality — next-generation EUV lithography has bogged down in no small part because the degree of perfection required at every stage of the manufacturing process is orders of magnitude above what the chip industry was previously required to achieve.

Intel is likely to roll out 3D NAND for enterprise SSDs first, but we should see consumer drives launching thereafter. With both Samsung and Intel on-board with the new technology, manufacturers like Toshiba are likely to follow in fairly short order.

Global access to the web’s best content

Global access to the web’s best content on your mobile device. Anonymous. Uncensored. Free. Outernet

No one can choose what they look like, where they’re born, or where they’re raised. All you can try to do is educate yourself as best you can and try to improve yourself on a daily basis. However, not everyone is given the same privilege in all parts of the world. The Internet has given us the ability to learn a myriad of new things every day, but not every has access to it.

If you wish you could help the world become more connected, then why not take an active role in helping that happen? The Lantern receives radio waves broadcast by Outernet from space. This device turns these signals into files such as videos, pictures, news articles, and much more. It’s like having a library in your pocket. Whenever you want to use it, activate the Wi-Fi hotspot, and connect with any Wi-Fi enabled device. It’s free to use, and not only has a ton of information, but is updated constantly.

This isn’t something you’ll need to worry about plugging in, as it has solar panels to help it stay juiced up. Seeing that this essentially gives you access to the internet offline, this could mean great things to all the people in the world who are willing to learn but don’t have the means. You’ll be able to download information for free without censorship (aside from parental controls for your kids), which is kind of a big deal. Getting the Lantern will cost you $99, but the company that came up with this idea has their eyes set on a much larger goal.

4.3 billion people on Earth - the combined populations of Europe and the United States TIMES FOUR - do not have access to the Internet. The majority of humanity does not have access to the enormous library of useful information that we take for granted. Books, courseware, weather information, disaster updates, uncensored news, entertainment, language learning software. What if there was another way to give that to everyone on Earth for free?

Enter Outernet.

Current System: "A Library In Every Village"

Outernet's current signal requires a dish and enables higher download rates for mass consumption on a school or village level. This campaign is to turn on a new signal that will blanket the entire Earth with free data and can be received on a device that fits in your hand.

Proposed System: "A Library In Every Pocket"

Information should be a public good available to everyone. This new broadcast frequency will enable global coverage to a pocket-sized device. That device is called "Lantern.

What Could Our Species Accomplish?

Imagine if every person could learn for free. 

Imagine if there were no more dark patches of people without access to information.

Imagine if the lights came on.

Never before in human history has there been an opportunity to raise the bar for everyone at once so dramatically. Outernet is such an inflection point. 

Currently, Outernet is broadcasting from geostationary satellites thousands of miles above the Earth. This is a Ku-band signal with a footprint which reaches all of North America, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. We launched this first phase of Outernet on August 11, 2014 to test various elements of the technology, allow users to build receivers and validate our work while providing us with useful feedback. 

We are ready for our next step.

How Does Outernet Work?

Below is a nifty infographic that the L.A. Times put together about Outernet. You can see the original with its animation here. 

How We Decide What Gets Broadcast

The Outernet broadcast is made up of three components:

The Core Archive is a collection of content selected by Outernet because of its importance to humanity. This will include news, educational content, and disaster updates, when applicable. It is publicly viewable, dynamically edited, and subject to continuous discussion and review.

We are currently compiling a first draft of the Core Archive, which we will publish in November. Here is a sample of what it will include:

Wikipedia, Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Educational courseware of EdX and Khan Academy, Project Gutenberg books, Open Source Ecology plans, audio and video literacy lessons, regular digests of the Bitcoin Blockchain, compiled news bulletins, disaster updates, OpenStreetMap, commodities information, weather information, and much more. The entire Core Archive will be less than 1 TB. Pared down versions will be considerably smaller.

The Queue is content that is requested and voted on by global citizens. Anyone can request content and we are constantly endeavoring to create more channels for users to submit requests. Content request channels include SMS, Facebook Zero, Twitter, and the Outernet website. A combination of popularity and origin of the request (higher priority being given to areas where there are greater barriers to making a request) determine broadcast eligibility and frequency. 

Sponsored content can be submitted by anyone. Think of it like an ad in a newspaper; you pay to have your content distributed alongside organically selected material. Sponsored content is flagged as such and its sponsor is identified. To add your content, select the $25 reward above. After IndieGoGo, this feature will remain available on a per MB basis.

For a more in-depth discussion on this, see this piece in Quartz by Outernet's Archive Editor, Thane Richard.

Outernet's Funding

Outernet is supported by the Media Development Investment Fund, an impact investment fund which provides financing to ventures that provide the news, information and debate that people need to build free, thriving societies. Since 1996, MDIF has invested $130 million in 105 different companies in more 36 countries. Outernet is thrilled to be supported by such a knowledgable and impactful organization.

published by Derlich-Herman Systems Engineer @ DCS.

scan and get hold of me 

Most Americans Don’t Understand How the Internet Works

 Most Americans Don’t Understand How the Internet Works

© Provided by Time Article Pew Web IQ

Most American Internet users aren't familiar with the concepts underpinning the Internet and common technology, a survey released Tuesday found.

Pew Research Center's Web IQ Quiz polled Americans with 17 questions relating to the web and technology, varying in technicality from where hashtags are used to the what Moore's Law means, according to the survey.

 While the majority of quiz takers correctly defined common Internet terms like net neutrality, most respondents struggled to correctly answer other questions about the infrastructure behind the Internet, like whether "Internet" and "World Wide Web" are the same.

The survey also found that only 44% of respondents were aware that a company's privacy policy doesn't necessarily mean the firm will actually keep users' information confidential.

Younger Internet users performed the best on the quiz, with the lowest age bracket (18-29) answering on average 10.1 out of the 17 questions correctly (about 60%). The highest age bracket (65+) answered on average 7.8 out of the 17 questions correctly (about 45%).

Simple Circuit Could Double Cell Phone Data Speeds

       A circuit that lets a radio send and receive data simultaneously over the same frequency could supercharge wireless data transfer. 

• By DCS on November 26, 2014

Demand for wireless bandwidth is growing rapidly.

This circuit could allow cell phones and other devices to double their data bandwidth. 

A relatively simple circuit invented by researchers at the University of Texas could let smartphones and other wireless devices send and receive data twice as fast as they do now.

The circuit makes it possible for a radio to send and receive signals on the same channel simultaneously – something known as “full-duplex” communications. That should translate to a doubling of the rate at which information can be moved around wirelessly.

Today’s radios must send and receive at different times to avoid drowning out incoming signals with their own transmissions. As a smartphone accesses the Internet via a cell tower, for example, its radio flips back and forth between sending and receiving, similar way to the way two people having a conversation take turns to speak and listen.

The new circuit, known as a circulator, can isolate signals coming into a device from those it is sending out, acting as a kind of selective filter in between a device’s antenna and its radio circuitry. Circulators are already a crucial part of radar systems, but until now they have always been built using strong magnets made from rare earth metals, making them bulky and unsuited to the circuit boards inside devices such as laptops and smartphones.

The new circuit design avoids magnets, and uses only conventional circuit components. “It’s very cheap, compact, and light,” says Andrea Alù, the associate professor who led the work. “It’s ideal for a cell phone.”
The two-centimeter-wide device could easily be miniaturized and added to existing devices with little modification to the design. “This is just a standalone piece of hardware you put behind your antenna.”

Alù’s circulator design looks, and functions, like a traffic circle with three “roads,” in the form of wires, leading into it. Signals can travel into, or out of, the circle via any of those wires. But components called resonators spaced around that circle force signals to travel around it only in a clockwise direction.

When a wireless device’s antenna is connected to one of the wires leading into the circle, it isolates signals that have just been received from those the device has generated for transmission itself. The new design is described by Alù and colleagues in a paper in the journal Nature Physics.

“This is definitely a significant research development,” says Philip Levis, an associate professor at Stanford. “It’s a very new way to look at a very old problem, and has some very good results.” However Levis notes that work remains to be done to convert the lab-bench breakthrough into something practical for the crucial frequency bands used for Wi-Fi, cellular, and other communications.

Alù says that his circulator can easily be adjusted to work at a wide range of frequencies, and that he is exploring options for commercializing the design. The circuit could, for instance, help simplify and improve technology being tested by some U.S. and European cellular carriers that uses a combination of software and hardware to allow full-duplex radio links (see “The Clever Circuit That Doubles Bandwidth”).

Joel Brand, vice president for product management at startup Kumu Networks, which developed that technology, says the new device could indeed be useful. “We would be happy to take advantage of it,” he says.

Samsung will reportedly shut down its ChatOn messaging service

As part of Samsung's overall restructuring plans that were revealed earlier this week, a new report says that the company will shut down its ChatOn messaging service


The Korea Times quotes an unnamed Samsung official as saying, "Samsung Electronics plans to exit from the mobile messaging market from region-to-region as part of corporate strategy to restructure unprofitable businesses and improve profitability." Another unnamed Samsung official stated, "Samsung is on track to streamline its business units. From a business point of view, ChatOn isn't a business that can show improvement in the future."
ChatOn was first launched in 2011 and is currently being used in 120 countries. This new report didn't state exactly when or where the ChatOn service would be shut down, although the unnamed Samsung execs claim that it won't happen immediately. Will any of you miss ChatOn when it's finally gone?

Tesco's Blinkbox now offers offline playback for movies and TV shows

 

Blinkbox today announced that iPad and Android tablet owners will be able to enjoy playback without an internet connection, thanks to a new offline mode. Just like we've had with music streaming services for some time, Blinkbox will allow subscribers to download their chosen film or TV show to watch on the go – perfect for travelling or in areas with poor signal.

Arriving just in time for the holiday season, co-founder and CEO of Blinkbox, Adrian Letts commented on the announcement:

"The ability to watch offline on tablets is one of the most frequently requested features and will transform the way many customers use blinkbox – whether that's by allowing more freedom to watch what they want in the home – or taking their entertainment on the move. I am pleased that we have been able to introduce download to tablet in time for the Christmas holidays so those who want to sneak off to bed, the pub or even another country can download a movie or their latest box set obsession and take it with them to enjoy without a connection."

The new watch offline update allows subscribers to download content on up to five connected devices. Tesco is also looking to push its new Hudl 2 tablet, which went live last month and has the Blinkbox app pre-loaded.

New encryption technology

New encryption technology hits nerve with DOJ

The latest technology used by Apple and Google to meet consumers’ demands on securing private data is hitting a nerve with the Department of Justice.

In a meeting last month with Apple executives, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department said the company’s new encryption technology that locks out law enforcement would lead to a tragedy. A child would die and the police would not be able to search the suspect’s phone, the official allegedly said.

Apple executives called the comments “inflammatory” and they told the government it could get the information from other sources, like telecommunication companies, leading to a standoff between Apple and the DOJ.

Law enforcement officials have said the new technology would make it harder for them to search phones for text messages, pictures and contacts. Apple would not have the key to decipher the information on the phone either, the Journal reports.

Apple's iMessage service also encrypts data from "end-to-end," but some experts say Apple's program has technical features that may leave it vulnerable to determined snooping.

Globally popular messenger app WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, is also using a powerful encryption to protect users’ conversation from unwanted snooping.

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum has said he's deeply committed to user privacy because he grew up in the Soviet Union during the 1980s, when his mother and other adults routinely assumed that authorities eavesdropped on their phone calls.

TextSecure is designed to make WhatsApp messages unable to be read by anyone but the sender and recipient, even if subpoenaed. The encryption feature is offered by default, meaning WhatsApp users don't have to turn it on and shouldn't notice its presence, according to a statement from Open Whisper Systems.

At the Wall Street Journal’s global tech conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook stressed the importance of consumer privacy regarding their personal data.

Cook said if officials want something personal, they need to go to the user to get it, not the company.

Cook believes the consumer will appreciate the efforts to protect their privacy in case of a major catastrophe.

“When that happens everybody wakes up and says, ‘Oh my God,’ and they make a change,” he said at the conference. “What that event is, I don’t know, but I’m pretty convinced that it’s going to happen.”

Android apps to Windows

Microsoft could bring Android apps to Windows

Of Microsoft’s many challenges in mobile, none loom larger than the app deficit: it only takes a popular new title like Flappy Bird to highlight what the company is missing out on. Windows 8 apps are also few and far between, and Microsoft is stuck in a position where it’s struggling to generate developer interest in its latest style of apps across phones and tablets. Some argue Microsoft should dump Windows Phone and create its own "forked" version of Android — not unlike what Amazon has done with its Kindle Fire tablets — while others claim that’s an unreasonably difficult task. With a new, mobile- and cloud-focused CEO in place, Nokia's decision to build an Android phone, and rumors of Android apps coming to Windows, could we finally see Microsoft experimenting with Google’s forbidden fruit?

Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is seriously considering allowing Android apps to run on both Windows and Windows Phone. While planning is ongoing and it's still early, we’re told that some inside Microsoft favor the idea of simply enabling Android apps inside its Windows and Windows Phone Stores, while others believe it could lead to the death of the Windows platform altogether. The mixed (and strong) feelings internally highlight that Microsoft will need to be careful with any radical move.

ANDROID IS THE MOBILE EQUIVALENT OF WINDOWS

Android is the mobile equivalent of Windows on desktop PCs — it’s everywhere. That growth shows no signs of stopping, and it represents a huge blockade for Microsoft’s mobile efforts across multiple market segments. iOS might still dominate developer interest for new apps, but Android has successfully bridged the gap on the smartphone side, something Windows Phone is still far from achieving. Android apps usually debut alongside their iOS equivalents, or shortly afterwards, and developers are clearly investing time and money on both platforms. For Microsoft, meanwhile, it’s a challenge of growing Windows Phone shipments and apps. Running Android apps on Windows Phone and Windows could serve as a Band-Aid.

Of course, this is a refrain we’ve heard before — the specter of BlackBerry’s failed effortto boost the relevance of its BlackBerry 10 platform by supporting Android apps looms large. Still, Microsoft is a different beast: it has the large backing of its enterprise, server, and cloud software sales to provide it with the cushion required to make radical moves. Nokia also ships considerably more smartphones than BlackBerry does. That doesn’t mean the prospects of running Android apps across Windows and Windows Phone are a guaranteed success story for Microsoft, but it may have the momentum to successfully co-opt Android that BlackBerry lacked.

While the latest rumors suggest that Nokia is significantly forking Android to push its own apps and Microsoft’s services to the masses with a low-cost handset, sources say that Microsoft’s plans could be far less involved. The company wants to enable Android apps on Windows and control the store that consumers download them from, but it’s unlikely that it will want to handle the complex job of supporting an additional platform. Instead, if such a plan goes ahead, it will likely involve a third-party "enabler."

Where might Microsoft go for assistance? Android on Windows is a muddled mess right now, but Intel and software firm BlueStacks might be good places to start. Intel is pushing its own Dual OS concept to let PC makers create hardware that runs both Android and Windows. Meanwhile, AMD has sided with BlueStacks — a company that Intel has even invested in itself — to allow users to run Android apps inside Windows with the help of an ARM processor embedded in some of its chips. BlueStacks has been enabling Android apps to run on Windows for a few years now, and it has signed deals with Lenovo and Asus to ship its software on their PCs.

The Android decision will ultimately fall on the shoulders of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

It’s remains unknown whether Intel or BlueStacks are in active partnership discussions with Microsoft. A BlueStacks representative refused to provide comment to The Verge, but sources familiar with Intel's plans have indicated that the chipmaker has been pushing Microsoft to provide Android apps in its Windows Store.

Regardless of who is involved, any official method for running Android apps on Windows and Windows Phone would need to be extraordinarily simple for consumers to understand and use. While the reality of virtualizing Android apps on Windows is far from simple, if apps were packaged up in a painless install method within the Windows Store and approved by Microsoft, consumers would be more likely to get on board. Then again, BlackBerry hasn’t had much luck winning anyone over, and Amazon’s Appstore is filled with out-of-date apps ferried over from Google Play.

ANDROID APPS ON WINDOWS PRESENTS DEVELOPER CHALLENGES

Such an approach would also raise questions over how developers could tweak and manage their applications for Microsoft’s implementation and process, and it could confuse and alienate native Windows developers even further. There’s also a risk of developers giving up on Microsoft’s "Metro" apps entirely, settling for the easier option of app porting over building something entirely new. Microsoft would have to weigh up the technical aspects, partner considerations, and the effect on business models before any decision is made either way.

Why would Microsoft want to do any of this? The answer is simple: "embrace, extend, and extinguish." It’s a phrase Microsoft used internally to describe its own strategy for disrupting standards and competitors in the 1990s. While Microsoft has been trying every trick to convince developers to build for Windows Phone and Windows, it has to answer the mobile reality the company faces. Embracing Android and extending it to the Windows and Windows Phone app stores could help Microsoft temporarily in the app race, but it might also stem the flow of consumers choosing Android- and iOS-based smartphones and tablets.

Consumers sign in to Android devices with their Google accounts, and in to iOS with their iCloud accounts. By comparison, relatively few are using Windows 8 machines or Windows Phones to sign in to Microsoft’s own cloud services. Microsoft is making moves with OneDrive and other apps across Windows, iOS, and Android, but the overall app shortage on Windows and Windows Phone is the larger concern. If Android apps or even Office, OneDrive, and other services on rival operating systems help pull people over to Microsoft’s devices and platforms, then it might not matter if consumers are opting to use Android or "Metro" apps on Windows or Windows Phone, as long as they’re using a Microsoft account to sign in to their device and utilizing Microsoft’s services. Nokia’s upcoming "Normandy" Android handset will also push consumers towards Microsoft’s services, alongside having the benefits of being a low-cost handset running some popular Android apps.

MICROSOFT NOW HAS TO DECIDE ON A BIG MOBILE BET

For Microsoft, the idea of Android apps running on Windows is as much about preventing more consumers moving to Android as it is building up consumer use of its cloud services. If Microsoft can convince more consumers to purchase its own Windows-powered devices because they now have access to key Android apps, then that might just help its own tablet and smartphone prospects. While any realistic implementation of Android apps on Windows will not likely be ready until Microsoft’s Windows 9 work is ready in 2015 at the earliest, if at all, Microsoft faces an ongoing battle over the cloud and the long, slow decline of the PC in consumer markets. The software giant is also considering free versions of Windows Phone and Windows RT to entice OEMs to produce devices, but embracing Android and enabling it could be the next step. Microsoft is never going to "extinguish" Android, but its long-term success requires that consumers look at its hardware and services seriously. Windows 8 was enough of a big risk on the PC side, but Microsoft now has to decide whether it wants to make an equally big — and unorthodox — bet on mobile